We moved to Louisiana on the eve of my seventh birthday. The military plane we took seemed so huge to me. I fell asleep on the flight it was so long. I had crayons and a coloring book. It was storming at the airport in Louisiana... lightning struck the ground not too far where I was waiting with my mother for the taxi. The shock of it made my jaw clench, and I bit my tongue very badly. At the time I thought I had nearly severed it. It was pretty bad. Blood was pouring from my mouth as my frightened mother took me, staggering, through the airport to seek medical attention. I recovered quickly, but to this day I have a cracked tongue.
The ride in the taxi-van was quiet, and the weather dreary. It was the middle of the day, but so dark because of the storm. Still, I was excited about moving to a new country and had a lot of mental energy and anticipation. While house searching, we lived in a trailer park. My father commuted to Fort Polk. There was a sadistic little boy who killed a puppy and "showed off" his handiwork in the empty feild next to the park. My mother--so normally passive and kind and acquiescing--got into a spat with another mother there. My little sister had some brand new watercolors and was painting on the trailer stoop when another little girl invited herself over. For some reason this girl wound up throwing Missy's paints into the dirt, and my angered 5 year old sister slapped this girl for it. (She's still feisty.)
The other little girl's mother started screaming at the top of her lungs at my terrified little sister; and my mother emerged and there were words. For some reason I was proud of my mother about this. Don't mess with Momma Bear!! or my little sister. I would have a temper of my own later on when a neighborhood boy said awful things to her. I was terrified of repercussions so I pre-emptively went to this boy's house to admit to his father that I'd slapped him, and his father was angry at him, not me, for being so mean to a little girl. Mr.Weaver was a cop.
I wanted this singing mermaid doll for my seventh birthday (which was very shortly after we moved to the US). I wanted it so bad I still can feel the desperation for it. My mother surprised me at the elementary school in Fort Polk, at school, with this doll. I was downright GIDDY over it. For years thereafter I would take long baths--so long the water would get cold and I would run more hot water--submerge myself, and listen to this doll sing underwater. I wish I could remember what it was called, because I think it would be neat for my kids to have, and I have such happy memories about her. I have loved mermaids ever since I could remember, and would pretend to be a mermaid any time I swam, which was as often as I could. I even played around with post-rain water in ditches, much to my parents' dismay. It is what led me to later become a competitive swimmer. I love water, always have, always will.
My parents purchased a home in DeRidder, Lousiana, in a neighborhood called Green Acres. 85 Pear Street. I switched to the DeRidder elementary. When I lived in Germany, on our mixed military base, I had no real concept of 'race'. One of my best friends was a little black girl named Latasha. She spent the night once and her hair stuck straight up in the morning, sending our mixed German shepherd-cocker-spaniel-greyhound (what a mix!) Bucky into a howling frenzy. I feel bad, but at the time I laughed, and she was frightened. Poor girl. I was fascinated by her 'black' hair, because it was so 'different'. Now I wonder if that made her feel bad.
My brother Daniel was best friends with his older brother. "Black" and "white" were not concepts familiar to me. They just didn't matter in Manheim. It was "friends". When I went to DeRidder elementary, I saw a little girl--Christine... for some reason I will always remember her name but I don't know if she even remembers me--that reminded me of Latasha. So I tried to make friends with her. But, for some reason, this little town was about 20 years "behind the curve". Racism=rampant. Very rampant. Whites and blacks didn't mingle, but I didn't know "the rules". I just saw a cute kid I wanted to be friends with. When I went up to her, her eyes were so wide, like "why is this white girl talking to me??" She was AFRAID of me; a seven year old kid. I can't blame her knowing what I know now. White people were NOT "safe". She ran away from me.
And all of a sudden it seemed the whole school hated me. Black kids avoided me, and I couldn't understand why. The white kids were awful. They tripped me, said horrible things about me, sabotaged any belongings of mine they could get their hands on, called me 'nigger lover' (I didn't even know what 'nigger' means!), dumped trash on me, etc.. Every day I came home crying. I was so alone, and didn't know why. My mother would rub my back with a well-guised--but not wholly guised--rage underneath. Who can stand to see their child hurting so bad? She pleaded with teachers and school staff to do something, but they wouldn't.
Bullying was... not an issue to society back then. Everyone had a 'get over it' attitude, and to this day, my father still has that attitude. His mentality was that I was "too sensitive" and should "get over it". I can't blame him though; he's just a product of his 'times'. He was bullied but got through it ok, so I think he just assumed I could too. I was his first daughter, and I don't think he understood some of the fundamental differences (albeit society conditioned, I am by no means trying to infer that girls are naturally 'different' mentally from boys... we just have these differences because of environmental messages, and I was a product of that) between girls and boys.
My mother wound up going to the school in one final desperate plea to resolve the intense bullying; she read the principal the riot act, but he wouldn't listen. Irony of ironies, he was a black principal. The first black principal ever in DeRidder. But he, too, was a product of environment, I think. He didn't want to risk 'rocking the boat'. He was in an impossible situation. Who could stand up to whites in this draconian little town? So, he offered no solution, and my tearfully angry mother went to find me. She was pulling me out of school that.day. Her timing couldn't have been more fortuitous, because she found me in the girls bathroom, being held at KNIFEPOINT. Two older girls had me pinned up to the bathroom corner with a knife at my neck. I don't really remember this incident except in removed dream-like waves. I don't know that I would have remembered as real and not a nightmare if my mother hadn't witnessed it and talked to me about it.
Those girls SCATTERED when my mother came in. She enrolled me in nearby Rosepine elementary school, which didn't really have any racial issues because of the fact that no blacks were enrolled there. It should've been better there, but it wouldn't be...
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